A watercolor painting I made for my "Behind the fence?" art exhibition, showing a fox and its pup. Here you can see the heavy grain of the paper, I normally use much smoother ones, but for the size of the painting (40x60cm) I only had the rough paper at hand.I'm not sure if I like the texture so much, but the looks of the two and the overall atmosphere of the painting is nice, blue-ish, like in early morning or late evening, when the light is low. Great time for foxes to come out!

Yes, you're right, sometimes a story gets a life of its own and keeps on living and growing, evolving and reshaping, and still keeps its special feeling And yes, I really take care about the eyes of my subjects, as they bring life to the whole painting. Thanks!

Thank you so much! In watercolor its extremely important to keep the eye colors clear and clean, since in most animals the eyes are bright, colorful and shiny. Even "dull" brown eyes are in fact like deep, dark glass. Be very careful with black and white as colors, since the other colors tend to get "muddy" when mixed with them.And care for the light! If you have a highlight on the top left, the down right corner will be lighted too, as the light passes through the glassy part of the eye.I learned much about eyes and light by looking at clear gems or water drops.Perhaps a google search for "gem painting tutorial" gives you some inspiration.Sorry for so much yada yada, I hope it helps

And for the white spot (light reflection), take care to mask it/leave it completely untouched by color or pencil. You can shade it down later, if you feel like it, but it's normally the only pure clean white spot on a face (as the pupils (and perhaps a dog's nose) are the only true blacks). Just another piece of unasked advice

Thanks I think the grain is great for large painted areas where the colors can move around a bit, it's great for background washes (giving it some texture). For details, not so much - I draw many details before I start painting, and the grain doesn't allow for really fine lines. If there was two-grain paper, with the rougher texture only for the background... that would be nice!